LAS VEGAS  Jamaal Franklin stalked half the court, bumped chests with Chase Tapley and then continued to preen.

Y’know, the way kids do.

Based on what had just transpired and the point in the game at which it did, Franklin’s peacock pride and oversized exuberance were expected and acceptable.

He had just taken an inbound pass and thrown half the court to Tapley, who headed for the basket before abruptly altering his body and dishing the ball back to an incoming Franklin, who slammed down an on-the-fly dunk.

Seven-point lead with 43 seconds to play.

Game over … as it should have been several minutes prior.

The San Diego State men’s basketball team can talk all it wants — and legitimately so — about the difficulty of the Mountain West Conference.

But the Aztecs’ inability to simply put away a decent team because they spend too much time screwing up is troublesome.

OK, so our expectations are high with this team. That’s how it is when a program has averaged 25 victories over the past seven years.

A win is a win. But when using recent results as a barometer, this SDSU team seems to not quite measure up to its own lofty designs on having many games left to play in this season.

Unless the Aztecs play longer stretches of games at a higher level than they have in the past month, they not only won’t beat top-seeded New Mexico in tonight’s Mountain West Tournament semifinal game, they’ll fall far short of their expectations in the NCAA Tournament.

The answer of whether or not the real Aztecs would show up now that the tournaments have started seemed a clear “yes” on Wednesday night.

That does not exactly provide the desired confidence.

They did play frenetically effective defense, especially in the first half. They did lead comfortably for all but a few minutes and trailed just one time (19 seconds in all).

They beat Boise State, 73-67, on Wednesday because, despite the teams’ identical 21-9 records going in, the Aztecs are the superior team in virtually every way — primarily in athleticism and experience.

But, as has been the case throughout the season, SDSU could never turn a big lead into a win going away against an above average opponent.

“We just got to make sure we keep matching our intensity and never give up,” Franklin said on Thursday. “Like, when we’re up in big games, we got to make sure we keep our foot on the gas.”

Give ’em credit. Wednesday was the 91st consecutive time SDSU has won when leading with five minutes to play.

Wednesday, that lead was two points with 4:58 remaining.

A 14-0 run had given Boise State a 50-49 lead exactly 2½ minutes prior.

During that streak by the Broncos, over a 3:20 stretch, SDSU turned the ball over four times and missed all three of its field goal attempts (all of them threes) and was 0 of 2 from the line.